You know you need a transcript for your podcast – but where should you put it?
This is a common problem, not just for podcasters, but for content creators who create multimedia that requires or benefits from transcripts. The good news is, there’s a simple answer.
Just in time for 2025, we’ve launched Transcript Host – a centralized location for all your transcripts.
Not only will your content be accessible to people with disabilities, but you’ll also unlock a buffet of benefits in terms of SEO, findability, user experience, and much more.
Give us 2.1 minutes and you’ll discover advantages to transcript hosting that you never knew existed.
Why Your Website Isn’t the Answer
Before Transcript Host, content creators typically defaulted to putting transcripts on their websites. It seemed logical – keep all of your content on your website, right? But this approach creates difficulties that many don’t anticipate until they’ve added several podcast episodes.
Here are the common issues that arise when hosting transcripts on your website:
- Your transcripts aren’t really content intended for your website. Rather, they’re alternatives to content you already offer. Your transcripts really don’t belong as another post or page because they’re neither – and if visitors come across them, they’ll be confused.
- Your site search results will now include transcript results which, again, doesn’t really match search intent since anyone searching your site will be looking for structured or intended information, not a transcript of a podcast.
- If you have a blog feed that shows your most recent posts and you publish your transcripts as a post, your transcripts will show up as new blog posts.
- Because of 1, 2, and 3, you’ll now need create a separate silo within your website for transcripts. This can create SEO problems for multiple reasons, one being that your crawl budget will be used on transcripts rather than content you intend on ranking.
There are other conflicts that arise, but, clearly, posting transcripts on your website is suboptimal.
One option is to have an expandable/collapsable box that embeds the transcript within an episode page. But this raises another question: do you really want to create and maintain separate episode pages on your website?
A Better Way Forward
Think about how you handle video content – while you may embed videos throughout your site, you don’t actually host them there. Instead, you use platforms like YouTube or Vimeo. Transcript Host applies this same proven approach to transcripts. Upload once, share anywhere, and let us handle the hosting and technical side.
What Transcript Host Does For You
When you upload your transcript to our platform, you immediately get a clean, professional URL you can share anywhere. No technical setup, no website modifications, no formatting concerns. Just a simple solution that works wherever your content lives.
For content creators, here’s what this means:
- Upload once, share the link everywhere your content appears
- Update transcripts instantly without touching your website
- Manage everything in one simple dashboard
- Focus on creating content, not managing transcripts
- Meet accessibility requirements effortlessly
- Make your content more findable (and not only in Google and Bing)
Making Content More Accessible
Let’s talk about WCAG requirements – accessibility is often what brings people to transcripts in the first place. WCAG stands for the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines and these are technical standards that set out requirements for web accessibility. Not only that, WCAG is incorporated or has been adopted by many laws and regulations.
In fact, Title II of the Americans with Disabilities Act, recently incorporated WCAG 2.1 AA as the technical standard for legal compliance for state and local governments.
WCAG has dozens of requirements, but one in particular stands out with transcripts: WCAG success criterion 1.2.1 (Level A). 1.2.1 requires transcripts for prerecorded audio-only content and then offers the option of a transcript or an audio track for prerecorded video-only content.
But Transcript Host can house transcripts for all types of media – not just podcasts and videos without audio:
- Training videos and tutorials
- Conference presentations
- Interview recordings
- Company announcements
- Educational content
- News updates
And the list goes on.
Accessibility bleeds right into better user experience. By providing an alternative, you make accessing your content easier.
Better For Your Audience
But this isn’t just about accessibility and compliance – you stand to win in the user experience department as well.
Your audience gets a consistent, professional experience every time they want access a transcript. Think about all of the ways people might use your transcripts:
- Search quickly through episode content
- Quote your exact words
- Reference specific sections
- Read when listening isn’t an option
Transcript Host makes all of this easy and intuitive.
The Technical Side? We Handle That
While you’re focusing on creating great content, we take care of:
- Mobile-friendly display
- Built-in search functionality
- Fast content delivery
- Hosting the GBs of data
- Secure storage
Growing With Your Content
As your content library grows, Transcript Host grows with you. Whether you’re publishing weekly podcasts or building a vast library of multimedia content, you need a transcript solution that scales. Just as your podcast hosting platform handles your audio files, we handle your text transcripts.
Making the Switch
Getting started with Transcript Host is simple: upload your transcripts, get your URLs, share them with your audience. Your website stays clean and focused, and your transcripts have a proper home that works for everyone.
Remember, transcripts aren’t just about checking a box for accessibility (though they do that too). They’re about making your content available to everyone, exactly when and how they need it.
Ready to give your transcripts a better home? Sign up for Transcript Host today and see why dedicated transcript hosting is the future of accessible content.
